Had a T-Roc Citylife as rental car - quite impressed by it

[Lucas_R]

My wife gets rental cars quite regularly for work trips, and earlier this week she had a T-Roc Citylife for a few days. I drove it a few times honestly expecting to be unimpressed, but it was quite the opposite.

Despite the fact that with only 22,000kms on the clock I needed to add about 500ml of oil and about 400ml of coolant to it (I always check the tyres/oil/coolant before my wife sets off in a rental car), the new automatic gearbox is much smoother than the older DSG, and honestly the gearchanges are almost just as fast while moving (not that 99% of people buying these would notice or care).

The engine (1.4L T) was smooth and felt stronger than the 110kw and 250nm suggests. I was expecting it to be well and truly underpowered (like a family members Mazda CX-3) but was impressed with the torque and it felt quite peppy.

Digital dash was cool and I like how you can play around with different displays - this was my first experience with a VW with a digital dash.

Colour is subjective of course, but this one was an unusual cream/off-white/undercoat colour which wouldnt be a colour I would ever pick.

Dislikes: Interior a bit "cheap" feeling, but keeping in mind this is a $40k car. Wasn't a fan of the haptic buttons for the air conditioning. Boot floor was very high (making for a small boot) but has a huge open cavity under the boot floor (presumably to leave room for the AWD system in the R models)

Overall was quite impressed with this little T-Roc. Would definitely consider the T-Roc R as a replacement to our ageing Audi SQ5 when the time comes.

Pics (not my photos, but same car and same colour).

[Sharkie]

Good review, Lucas; in my opinion, in 1.4T mode (Style or City Life) it is the best car you can buy for $40K.

We have 2 in the family, my daughter's T-Roc Style(1 up from the CityLife) and the R of course. Ordered the R the moment I drove the Style, it is genuinely such a good car. Not perfect, but pretty d@mn good. BTW, the boot floor can permanently drop to the lower setting to give you quite a deep boot. Once you experience that 8spd auto all DSGs (including that in our R) feels agricultural by comparison.

You will love the R, other than DSG foibles (and no DSG tune for that particular DQ381 model available as yet anywhere), it s a very good car. EA888.4 (exact same as in MK8 R) making 298kw/500NM with just a Stg1 tune ...

[Flipper Dog]

I also have regular usage of hire cars for work to do about 800km motorway and country kms each time.
Last couple have been 85kw T-Cross, 110kw T-Roc and 110kw Tiguan. All better vehicles than the influx of cheap Chinese brands that I now flat out refuse to take.
What I was surprised with was the Tiguan, even 110kw of power it still went alright. However the pick of these three was the citylife T-Roc.
Having had a R-Line and now a R in the garage I am fairly familiar with T-Rocs so was not really expecting too much from this T-Roc but as Lucas has noted it is a good little package. Yeah it is lacking some of the looks and equipment to what I am used to but still I rate it for its fuel economy, handling and over all smoother gear changes.
If personal finances changed I would be happy with owing one at half the price of the R, it is almost hard to see the value in paying twice the price for the R until you drive a R.